Harold Meyerson’s piece in The American Prospect should terrify Republicans. He details the recent disintegration of the GOP in California, and it is astonishing to read. Republican registration is now below 30% in the Golden State, and the Democrats have supermajorities in the state senate and assembly. Asian-Americans, who make up a healthy 11% of the state’s electorate, voted for Obama 79%-21%. Voters 29 and younger voted for Obama 71%-29%. Yet, the Republicans haven’t shown any signs of adapting. Look at how they did with women:
The racial and political recomposition of the California electorate is now reflected in the racial and political recomposition of the state’s elected officials. If Indian American Ami Bera holds his lead over Republican Representative Dan Lungern in a Sacramento-area congressional district, the 38 California Democrats in the next Congress will include five Asian Americans and nine Latinos, as well as three African Americans. The 15-member Republican delegation will include no minorities—and, astonishingly, no women. Of the 38 Democrats, 18 are women. Not surprisingly, Obama carried women voters in California by a margin of 64 percent to 34 percent.
In California, the Republican Party is barely more relevant than it was in the Jim Crow south. It has thoroughly alienated every subsection of the electorate that isn’t white and male and suburban or rural. And California Republicans obviously saw this coming, but they did absolutely nothing to prevent it from happening. That does not bode well for the national party.
Hopefully that saying is correct, except for the not labeling GMO foods part.
The republicans will stay clueless. Their takeaway from the election? They need better lies:
They’re all affirming this on the teevee today. It’s in their DNA: Ripe Bananas At Any Cost.
One of the classic signs of addiction is the continued pursuit of the beloved in the face of mounting wreckage.
Also, what Atrios said yeterday:
We’re All Fantasy Ronnie
And all the ripe bananas in the forest.
This is all correct, for sure. If it weren’t for Prop. 13’s requirement of a 2/3 vote in the Legislature to raise taxes, I almost feel like we’d have single payer here in Cali. We certainly would be close. That requirement is the only thing keeping the GOP relevant.
A couple things from Cali that you might not have paid close attention to if you don’t live here. First:
A few blocks from my pad, a Democratic Mayor, Bob Filner, will walk into City Hall for the first time since I was a kid. I was much too jaded to actually think this was possible, despite my vote for the man.
Scott Peters, Democrat, is poised to take Rep. Bilbray’s seat in the House. This is a huge upset as the district has a GOP advantage in registration. Not over, but yesterday the papers, including right-wing hack Doug Manchester’s Union-Tribune, reported that Peters’ slight lead had widened in the count. This is huge. San Diego would be sending three Ds to two Rs in its Congressional delegation for the first time in my memory.
And for me, the biggest deal is that (the doubtless problematic) Governor Brown put a tax increase on the ballot as an initiative, Prop 30. He labeled it a “tax increase.” Papers called it a “tax hike.” It passed. That’s right: the State that gave us Howard Jarvis and Prop 13 voted unambiguously for a tax increase.
I supported Brown for Governor despite misgivings–his tenure as Mayor of Oakland was not good for Oakland’s working people–because he explicitly campaigned on the idea that the discourse around governance and revenues needed to change, and that he would take it to the people. This is more than a change of policy but of discourse.
Big, big deals.
Did you see this?
Kind of crazy.
My God, a Democrat vs a Democrat for an actual seat. I didn’t even know that was possible. But it’s not a bad idea.
Primaries now advance the top two vote getters regardless of party affiliation.
In the general election there were two GOP for the 8th and 31st Districts, two DEM for 15th, 30th, 35th, 40th, 43rd, and 44th, and in four races an independent advanced to the general (all lost).
Based on the results this year, this method of selecting general election candidates is a positive for progressives.
Who was behind this idea? I suspected that referendum was a GOP ploy but in practice it doesn’t seem to have helped them.
Now, let us remember that Great Britain is currently suffering from extreme austerity bullshit brought on by the Tories who won – what? 37%? – of the vote but the other 63% was split between 6 or 7 left-of-center parties. Well, one of those was the Lib Dems who are now a DEAD party because they partnered with the Nazi party to form the coalition and have endorsed (with appropriate mealy-mouthed “concerns”) every reich wing thing they’ve done.
Or our partners to the north who are now suffering the reich wing occupation because the reich wing party one less than 40% of the vote but got a parlimentary majority.
The reich wingers are very skilled at turning minority votes into majority legislatures. Just look at Ohio, Virginia, and Florida.
Proposition 14 passed in 2010. Seems like a natural evolution once “declined to state” registrants were allowed to vote in whatever party primary they chose at the polls.
Sweet. I used to live in Riverside, downtown, which is about 15 min from downtown San Bernardino.
Baca wasn’t as bad as my guy, Congressman Blowjob, but he was not great. Weather aside, it’s a sunny day in Southern California.
This actually points to what I can see happening in the future. I truly can’t see the GOP becoming a relevant national party again. I can see the Democratic Party becoming such a big tent it factionalizes formally, even to the point of a split, though. I would think this is decades away.
Given the role of media in our political process and how wedded in a personal and institutional sense our media types are to the two parties, I can’t see a third party on the right replacing the GOOP.
I just made that typo and decided to keep it intact. The “Grand Old, Old, Party.”
It will matter when the California legislature can raise taxes again without a 2/3 majority or a bloody amendment to their state constitution.
Couldn’t they repeal Prop.13 now?
No, It’s in the constitution. It would take a Propisition.
Plus a intregal part of Prop 13 was a restriction of property taxes. They now have a very small increase per year, and some have even dropped because of the housing crash, unless the house is sold, then they reset. Prop 13 was a reaction to prop taxes increasing with property values, making them unpredictable each year. Even renters voted for it, because their rents went up. Some states, like Colorado, are experiencing the same thing. The situation was terrible. Digby likes to rail against prop 13, but the situation before it passed was untenable.
Prop 13 did crush the incomes of cities, but a repeal would remove the prop tax restrictions. NOBODY would vote for it. I estimate a proposition repealing prop 13 in it’s entirety would lose 80-20.
A prop repealing just the 2/3 requirement might have a chance, but I doubt it.
I don’t know much about the history of Prop. 13, but Digby is far from the only one who has railed against it.
If the situation was untenable before Prop. 13, clearly the solution has also proved untenable. What is needed is of course not to go back to the status quo ante, but to find a better solution. A state must have some ability to raise revenue. Nice that you have a Democratic super majority now, but that took how many years? and it won’t always be so. Make hay while the sun shines.
sucks to be them.
I would urge them to stay the current course.
I am very happy and excited about the way the election turned out in california. With 2/3 majorities in both the state house and senate, we will finally be able to address sone of our long term problems without the obstruction of the local republican crazies. Governor Brown now has an open window of opportunity to move the state in a more progressive direction on any number of fronts — revenues, school funding, infrastructure improvement (yay bullet train!), the drug war, … you name it. I hope he makes the most of it.
Yes, I had read that we were going to have Democratic supermajorities before long, but I didn’t realize it would happen so soon. It’s a strange and wonderful feeling. It’s not like all the state’s problems are going to magically fix themselves, but at least we have a chance now.
Jes’ sayin’…
Jes’ sinkin’.
Bet on it.
AG
Yet California is still home to the dumpster fire otherwise known as Darrell Issa.
unfortunately true. But we dumped Bilbray, might dump Lungren, and got rid of a couple of the most conservative blue dog dems too. It was a great election.
Issa is my congressman, last I checked the returns he won 120,000 to around 90,000.
Sounds like a lot, but he’s beatable. Democrats get no publicity around here. Get the Hispanics to care, and a candidate that works hard, perhaps a woman, and he is toast.
.
Unfortunately in Indiana the situation is reversed. Dems don’t even need to show up. The Tepublicans have supermajorities in both houses and the govenorship.
I predict a resurgence of Flip Wilson’s “Church Of What’s Happenin’ Now” to coincide with upcoming Indiana lege discussions of mandatory religious services for all citizens.
OT
Boehner’s posturing about tax cuts is really quite wonderful. THIS is the GOPs Tariq Aziz moment, the no tanks in Bagdad moment.
Get this into your head republicans: tax rates for the 5% are going up. You lost.
As a lifelong Democrat, great for California. but, please have a bit of sympathy for those of us in a very red state whose legislature is 1 party switch away from having super majorities in both houses. And they are the ones who enacted one of the most egregious under the radar voter id measures in their last session.
As of July 1, in order to renew or obtain a Drivers’ license, one must produce a birth certificate, a marriage certificate or other doc if one’s name is different from what’s on the birth cert, plus 2 other forms of identification proving residency. Doesn’t matter if one’s been driving for 5 decades, one has to still do this.
One needs photo id in order to vote and the governor tells us that these new requirements will protect all citizens from identity theft. That’s how they are selling this egregious requirement. I truly do hate the GOP. I do.
Are you talking about NC? How did this happen? Are there no actual independents? The openly radical GOP takes over total control even with an enormous Obama turnout? WTF?
It’s stupifying to think that political moderates in 2012 can watch what happened in Fuhrer Walker’s Wisconsin and think that is what they want for their state, too.
I’m sorry for your state, and political extremism and vote suppression in one state hurts all the others in a variety of ways.
That’s a really excellent analysis IMO.
where I am in NorCal the Labor/Latino grouping isn’t so much in evidence, but the fact that asian-americans vote dem sure is.
The race between Ami Bera and Dan (Defender of DOMA) Lungren will probably take weeks to resolve. The Bera campaign spent every last cent by election day, and needs funds to continue paying for staffing and lawyers. You know Lungren will do everything possible to cheat, and has the backing of the one percent. If you can contribute anything to help Bera fight back, please do so. We are so close to making a major change, and once it happens, the seat will be blue forever. Thank you!
https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/everyvotecountsfund